


Words You Can't Say

by saruma_aki



Series: Coldflash Week 2017 A [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Barry Allen, Body Swap, Boys In Love, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Meta, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character(s), Pansexual Leonard Snart, Pre-Slash, Scars, Tumblr: coldflashweek, coldflashweek, coldflashweek2017a
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 21:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10602537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saruma_aki/pseuds/saruma_aki
Summary: It was the oddest sensation, being in a body not your own. It felt like the very air you breathed was different, like nothing was the same. The very altitude and the perception of it were different. But despite all that, when they looked at each other, it still felt the same.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Day Four of Coldflash Week 2017 in April!
> 
> Prompt: Body Swap
> 
> I've never really been a fan of body swap stories, so this one gave me a bit of a hard time. I feel like my reasons for not liking body swap stories comes through a bit here, but I did my best with it anyway.
> 
> I hope you all like it!

It was the most unnerving thing to suddenly feel a sudden wave of power crash over him and nearly knock him off balance, a wave of vertigo following not far behind. The male who crashed into them stumbled, pausing and looking back. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, looking at both of them.

“It’s alright,” Barry said, but Leonard didn’t really feel fine. He felt tingly and odd and it most definitely was not a feeling he appreciated. The male smiled at them and Leonard committed the face to memory. Something didn’t feel right suddenly and he most definitely needed to remember every detail of the kid’s face in case he turned out to be linked.

He wasn’t an idiot.

The male nodded and kept walking and Barry turned to look over at him. “Snart,” Barry asked, concern dripping into his voice and Leonard pressed the heel of his palm to his temple, trying to push back the sudden sharp bolts of pain behind his eyes. “Are you okay?”

He gritted his teeth, brow furrowing for a moment. “I’m fine,” he responded after a beat, the pain becoming more bearable as he let it wash through him, becoming more familiar. He had always had a high pain threshold. “I have to go,” he mumbled, the stabbing pain behind his eyes making everything blurry and he wanted to do nothing more than simply curl up on his bed and not wake up for the next few days.

Which is exactly what he did when he left Barry on the street that day; he went home, changed into loose sweatpants and a sweater and went to sleep.

When he woke up he was most definitely not in his home and surrounded by people he did not know. Well, he knew Ramon and Dr. Snow, but he most certainly did not want to be in their company. And if he was in their company he was most definitely not at home.

“Barry, you’re awake!”

Definitely not at home.

 

 

 

“Barry, where are you going?”

“I’m not Barry,” he bit out for what had to be the sixth time, marching to the parking lot and searching for any vehicle he could take.

“That’s right. Um, Snart—where are you going?”

“To go find my body,” Leonard responded bitterly, multiple scenarios running through his head and the avoidance of all of them required him to find his body as soon as possible. “Did either of you drive here?” he muttered, leveling them with a flat look. They looked vaguely uncomfortable and he realized that wearing the face of one of their friends while distinctly not having the same personality was probably a bit mind boggling for them. “The sooner I find my body, which probably has Scarlet in it, the sooner we get this fixed.”

Dr. Snow seemed to pull herself together at those words and she nodded. “My car is just over there,” she motioned and Leonard held his hand out for the keys which she reluctantly handed over while leading them over to her car. There was no way in hell he was letting someone other than him drive.

“You know you could just speed over there, right?” Cisco piped up as he and Caitlin both got into the backseat while Leonard slipped into the driver’s seat, powering on the car and immediately turning off the radio the second it started playing.

“Yeah, no, we’re not doing that.”

 

 

 

“How did this happen?” Barry asked as if anyone in the room had an answer to that and Leonard was simply sitting lying against the wall, blinking blearily at the room, wishing he could just go to sleep, but not being able to because he was in a room surrounded by strangers and Mick and Lisa looked seriously confused as to who to protect.

Were they supposed to protect his body or his mind?

Honestly, he didn’t know either.

Barry scrubbed his hands over his face and the movement looked so unnatural on his body that Leonard reached over and grabbed his wrists, pulling them down and placing them in his lap. “Stop moving,” he grumbled, returning to being slumped against the wall, trying to fight back the exhaustion, but he felt like he had been running for days on end without sleep, his eyelids drooping.

“Alright, well, I’m going to need a blood sample from both of you. Barry, we’ll start with you,” Dr. Snow declared and that was when Mick moved forward, immediately blocking Caitlin’s way and Leonard dragged himself away from the wall to also block the way, grabbing the needle out of Dr. Snow’s hand while he was at it. “Snart, I need this blood sample if we’re going to figure out what’s wrong.”

“You’re not taking it,” Mick rumbled and Leonard thanked everything that Mick was the good friend he never thought he would have, turning to face Barry—and it was seriously unsettling to essentially be looking at himself but knowing it wasn’t himself—and pushing against his forehead to make him tilt his head back.

“Keep your head like this,” he muttered, meeting Barry’s eyes with his own, waiting for the male to nod his acquiescence before he was shielding his own arm—this was going to confusing really fast—from view, rolling up the sleeve till it rested just above the joint of the elbow, rubbing an alcohol swab over it, Dr. Snow and Mick’s arguing just hazy background noise as he inserted the needle the barest bit and let the tube fill up with red, watching with a detached sort of interest.

When it was done, he pulled out the needle, wiping down the area and holding the swab to it for a few seconds before letting it go and puling the sleeve back down, only then letting Barry’s head tilt back down. When he turned around and handed the syringe back to Dr. Snow, Mick stopped his growling, looking satisfied with his successful distraction.

Leonard ignored the odd look Barry sent him as he returned to leaning against the wall, eyes half lidded, repeating the procedure with the new needle handed to him, courtesy of Lisa, while Dr. Snow watched on in confusion as he drew the blood from his—well, Barry’s—arm and handed the needle off to her.

They sat in silence for a bit as Caitlin moved about, Leonard trying to keep from swaying, but falling slightly short, his brow furrowing as he tried to get his bearings about him, but it was like trying to grab water with his bare hands.

“Snart,” Barry whispered, scooting closer, his face turned towards Leonard, shielded from everyone else’s eyes, “are you okay?”

“Peachy,” he mumbled as his eyes finally slipped shut and he fell backwards unconscious.

 

 

 

“Snart,” he heard a voice call but the words sounded faint and muffled to his ears. He could feel a hand on the skin of his forearm and he would’ve jerked away if he could have found the energy to do so, but he was utterly exhausted and he didn’t even twitch, his conscious mind weakly trying to find a way to gather up all the information it had.

He knew the voice, but it wasn’t Mick’s or Lisa’s. The last thing he remembered was looking at his face. Was he looking at a mirror? No, he knew he wasn’t. He hardly ever looked in the mirror. He was looking at himself, but not himself. He was not himself, he knew that much. Everything felt off.

He had fallen unconscious, but not due to poison. Going by his current feeling of absolutely no energy to function, he guessed it was from some form of exhaustion. Had he not slept? No, he knew he had. That was one of the few things he always did unless he had a job, but he knew he didn’t have a job. He’d never go to a job exhausted, or let himself get to such a state while planning one out.

He remembered sleeping, though. He remembered falling asleep when he got home, remembered waking up what felt like an hour later in an unfamiliar room and a phone that wasn’t his telling him it was four days after when he knew he had gone to sleep. He had been at STAR Labs—he recognized the interior and the clinical yet homey smell—of science and chemicals and cheesy tacos and pop rocks. He recognized the smell now.

He was still there.

That was something.

He remembered feeling off when he had woken then, just as he did now.

“Snart,” the voice asked again, and he recognized it—recognized it as his own even though he knew he hadn’t opened his mouth.

That was right.

That’s where the odd feeling came from. He wasn’t in his own body—he was in Barry’s body, and Barry was in his. And he was in STAR Labs to figure out how to switch them back. And he had passed out, although he didn’t know why.

“Snart,” the voice called more urgently, grip on his forearm tightening and it was like suddenly everything came back online and he was lurching away, tearing his arm away with as much control as he could muster, eyes flying open and focusing on his own eyes staring down at him, but the sudden burst of movement sucked out whatever energy he had in him and he slumped back against the thin mattress of the med bed, brow furrowed as he fought away the dizziness.

“I’m guessing this is due to your weird biology,” he muttered, reaching up and scrubbing his hands over his face.

“You guessed correctly,” he heard Ramon chime in from where, he guessed, was the foot of the bed but a few paces away from it. “You were unconscious for four days before and when you woke up you were launched into a high stress situation.”

“So you haven’t eaten at all,” Dr. Snow continued from a noticeably closer, but still far off, point somewhere on his right. “Barry’s body functions faster than most, including his metabolism. He requires a higher amount of calorie intake.”

“I used to faint a lot because of it,” Barry chimed in from beside him. “I guess it slipped everyone’s mind to even think of mentioning it.”

Leonard nodded, taking note of the tube connected to his arm, hooked to what had to be a drip with nutrients or something like that. He fought back the urge to tear it out of his arm, instead shoving himself into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes with his fingers as he fought back the next bout of dizziness.

“Eat this,” Barry coaxed from next to him, “It’s a protein bar Cisco makes for me in order to avoid this,” the male added and Leonard accepted the bar, biting off the corner, not having the energy or ability care whether it was poisonous or not. He just chewed and swallowed, not really tasting it or registering the movement all that much.

He felt like he was running on auto-pilot, like he wasn’t in control. He just wanted to go to sleep and wake up in his own body. Was that too much to ask for?

He felt like the answer to that question had always been ‘yes’ when it came to his life.

He was always asking for too much, apparently.

 

 

 

It had been three days.

Barry sighed, rubbing his forehead, feeling Leonard’s eyes focused on him even though the man was cleaning a gun, his movements precise and methodical and he could see Caitlin and Cisco looking vaguely worried as they fluttered about trying to fix their situation.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” he announced and he watched Leonard blink and sigh before setting down the gun, Mick standing guard over his station, and sliding off the bed, following Barry to the bathroom. “Any chance you’ll let me do this on my own?”

“No,” was the curt response he received, the same response he had been receiving every single time he asked. He wanted to insist that he be allowed to do this on his own, but he also knew that he had his own qualms about Leonard using the bathroom and being able to look. Mainly because it made him feel vaguely embarrassed even though he didn’t really have anything to be embarrassed about.

“Will you tell me why?”

Leonard leveled him with an annoyed look that looked ridiculously out of place on Barry’s face, but still managed to shut him up for the moment.

“Please?” he continued. He hadn’t dared to press initially, knowing that this was a stressful situation and he most certainly hadn’t wanted to push Leonard then. But now, it was day three and Barry felt like pushing a bit. He wanted know why he wasn’t even allowed to roll up the sleeves of the long sleeved shirt Leonard had been wearing or even scratch at an itch under the clothes, always maintaining his hand over the fabric at Leonard’s steady glare.

Leonard remained quiet, making Barry tilt his head back as they did every time, placing two wet cotton balls over his eyes to discourage him opening them before the zipper was being undone and the pressure in his bladder was finally allowed to lessen.

“My sister showed you the scar on her shoulder,” Leonard muttered after a few moments of silence, carefully tucking Barry back in his pants and zipping him up, moving to wash his hands as Barry removed the cotton balls from his eyes and dried his face. They switched places, Leonard providing the same courtesy to Barry as Barry had for him, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as Barry placed two new wet cotton balls over the man’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Barry responded, undoing the zipper and letting Leonard go in peace, brow furrowed as he slowly connected the dots.

“Imagine that one but larger and a multitude everywhere,” was Leonard’s response as Barry tucked his back in his pants and moved to wash his hands while Leonard tossed away the cotton balls and dried his face.

“Is that why you won’t let me roll up the sleeves? You know I don’t care, right,” Barry asked, turning to face Leonard who tilted his head downward a bit, his brow furrowed. He looked so somber and muted—it wasn’t right for Leonard to be like that and it looked wrong on Barry’s face.

“They form words I have no desire to share to the world,” Leonard muttered, tone dark and eyes clouded with the shadow of a hard past that Barry was still trying to understand the extent of.

Words he would prefer not share? Were they insults carved into his skin? Were they degrading words that made bile rise up in Leonard’s throat? Did he consider them true to any extent? There were so many questions he wanted to ask. He knew that these scars were a permanent stain on Leonard’s skin, a lifelong reminder from Lewis Snart.

“Will you show me them when we switch back?”

“Why would you want to see them,” Leonard mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and moving towards the door, clearly wanting to go back to simply sitting and thinking and being reminded to eat something every two hours so that he wouldn’t pass out.

“Because, like I told you before all of this happened,” Barry murmured, reaching out and gently taking Leonard’s forearm into his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze and looking deep into the man’s eyes that—even though they were the wrong color—held the same depth and complexity of emotion as his normal blue gems did, “I want to get to know you better.”

“Still don’t know why you want to.”

“And I still don’t know why you seem so opposed to letting me.”

And this was the exact discussion they had been having the last day of consciousness they had.

He felt Leonard freeze under his fingers, his eyes widening. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. C’mon,” he gasped, turning and flying out the door and Barry blinked, following along hurriedly, pushing away the odd feeling the sudden change in topic caused in him.

Hurrying into the main room, he saw Leonard asking for a piece of paper and a pencil, eyes alight with a sort of fire that Barry only ever saw the barest hint of through Leonard’s goggles whenever the man was pulling a heist—a sudden burst of adrenaline that seemed to fill him up completely and wholly.

“You remember that day,” Leonard spoke as he set the paper on the table and took up the pencil, his hands blurring with the super-speed—and Barry had to take a second to look because now that he could see it from an outside source, it certainly looked ridiculously impressive, or more so than when he was looking down at his own hands.

“Yeah,” he responded, moving closer, watching as Leonard stopped and turned the paper to face him.

“The kid that bumped into us, remember? You didn’t seem to feel it—probably because you have everything functioning so fast your body filtered through this particular sensation relatively quickly—but there was a surge of power, like an electromagnetic pulse wave.”

“Really,” Barry breathed out, his own eyes a little wide, partially because of the new information and partially because Leonard turned out to be a pretty fucking amazing artist at the picture depicted the male in stunning detail. He was exactly as Barry remembered him, down to the twists in his hair as they crossed his forehead when he had turned around to apologize to them.

Leonard nodded.

“If you can run a facial recognition on him and find an address, we can maybe fix this.”

“Isn’t this a bit of a shot in the dark?” Cisco questioned from where he was sitting, listening to the information being brought forth as Leonard’s mind seemed to speed through the information.

“Most things when it comes to meta-humans are shots in the dark, but it has to be this. I went straight to bed afterwards and Barry, apparently, came and crashed here immediately.”

Barry nodded his consent, grabbing the picture and thrusting it out to Cisco. “Find an address and Leonard and I will go and talk to him. Hopefully he’s not violent.”

“And if he is?” Caitlin cut in and Barry saw Mick from a few steps behind her roll his eyes like that was the dumbest possible question—and it really was, in a way, although Barry couldn’t really fault Caitlin for it.

“Then we’ll deal with it.”

 

 

 

The boy’s house was a nice place and Leonard and Barry stood awkwardly on the doorstep, waiting for someone to answer the door. Leonard had already told Barry that this was a fantastically bad idea, showing up on his doorstep when they didn’t know the kid, and Barry had to agree. Unfortunately, he also couldn’t see another way to somehow happen upon the kid.

The door opened and Barry fought back the urge to jump and bolt off the porch before the person could see them, but he knew better than that, especially when Leonard’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist in a secure hold, not ridiculously tight, but tight enough that Barry got the message—no flaking allowed.

Thankfully, because apparently their luck was deciding to hold out for a bit, it was the male himself that answered the door, looking surprised and scared as his eyes landed on them.

“Hi,” Leonard spoke, putting on a charming smile that Barry mimicked. “We need to talk to you about an urgent matter—it’s about our run-in about a week or so ago. Do you have a minute to spare?”

The male stared at them, looking like he would like nothing more than to slam the door in their faces, but there must’ve been something on their faces that convinced him to take a step out of the door, closing it behind him and standing before them, looking equal parts confused, curious, and terrified.

“What do you need?”

“Do you happen to possess certain abilities?” Barry asked, jumping as quickly into the main problem as possible, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

The male’s brow furrowed. “What kind are you talking about? I haven’t done anything.”

“Well,” Barry trailed off, scratching his cheek, gaze flitting to the side.

“Oh god, did I do something to you guys? Are you alright?”

The kid was in full blown panic now, hands fluttering in nervous energy, his mouth running through a series of quick fire questions interspersed with apologies and anything of that ilk, his eyes sparkling with tears that had Barry panicking internally, but a glance at Leonard showed the man to be completely calm in the face of the boy’s panic, simply staying quiet and observing until the babbling had run its course, small tears leaking from the boy’s eyes.

He couldn’t be older than sixteen, Barry realized, feeling pity stir in his chest.

“Can you reverse what you did?” Leonard asked; his voice soothing and gentle, a softness to his expression that didn’t emerge often—or ever, for that matter. “Can you put us back in our own bodies?”

The kid nodded his head frantically, wiping at his eyes furiously. “Yeah, yeah, I can,” he spluttered, looking about himself. “Let me grab some shoes. You guys will need to go to sleep immediately after, so we should do this around people that can take care of you,” the kid mumbled, opening the door and grabbing the pair of boots on the side, tugging them onto his bare feet before turning to face the two.

“Right,” Barry clapped his hands together, feeling hope curl in his chest, sending Leonard a grin. “Let’s get going.”

 

 

 

They were lying side by side on the makeshift bed on the floor of STAR Labs, the kid nervously hovering over them, seeming to be making sure everything was in place while trying to reassure himself that he hadn’t done any of this on purpose.

Barry could relate.

“Will you show me them when we’re back to normal?” Barry whispered; his face turned towards Leonard, watching him turn his face to look at Barry in response, his shoulders shrugging just slightly.

“Maybe,” was his only response, his eyes closing, looking like he was trying to relax himself, deep measured breaths entering and escaping him.

Barry smiled a little, closing his own eyes and tilting his hand just slightly so that their fingers brushed, felt Leonard tilt his towards Barry in response, thumbs hooking together.

“Alright—I think it’s all good. The longest you should be out is three days, but it’s, apparently, faster when it’s going in the reverse, so it shouldn’t be more than a day,” the kid said as he kneeled at their heads, hands shaking just slightly as he extended them outward and gently placed them on their shoulders.

There was a pain behind Barry’s eyes, sharp and stabbing and he wondered if this had been what Leonard felt that time after the rush of power had dissipated, his brow furrowing as he tried to ignore the pain, opening his eyes to look at Leonard who was looking back at him before his eyes slowly shut, and Barry’s shut in response.

 

 

 

There was nothing quite like the feeling of waking up in your own body after being out of it for so long. It felt like coming home after a long day of work and sitting down on the couch with the television on and finally getting a moment to simply relax and unwind just a little bit. But Barry wasn’t really focusing on how he felt as he slowly came back to consciousness, making sure all of his limbs were operational.

No, what he was focusing on was getting his eyes open so that he could look at the figure he knew was lying next to him if the small weight in his hand was any indication. He shifted just slightly, curling his fingers around the hand so that he held it in a gentle grasp, the fingers moving against his until they were threaded between each other, palms pressed together.

He opened his eyes, letting his gaze meet the blue one staring back at him, his lips curling up into a smile that only got wider when the expression was returned.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it!
> 
> Feel free to find me on instagram ( @saruma_aki ) where I let y'all know when I post a new fic.
> 
> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


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